A Slaying Song Tonight
by Matrix Refugee
Summary: Road to Perdition On Christmas Eve, Nitti hands Maguire what at first glance looks like a really simple job...
1. What Fun it is

+J.M.J.+

A Slaying Song Tonight

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

I shouldn't be writing this since I haven't actually _seen_ the movie _Road to Perdition_; I've only read the movie novelization and heard the kick-rear soundtrack (If this does not get the Oscar for best original score, or at least a nomination, I am gonna be MAD!), so if the facts are off in this, blame it on that. This was too wild an idea to keep under my fedora for long. When the Ref gets nasty, she goes whole hog! The gentle, sensitive Ref has turned out a fic that is not for the sensitive, yet not for the cynical, either. Arguably AU or pre-film (Obviously). I was in a **_verrrry_** strange mood when I wrote this: anyone who's been stuck in a house on a cold afternoon, babysitting a berserk eight-year old girl who practically lives on cookies (And who looks like she lives on cookies) will identify with this fic. If the gentle Jude Law who charmed us as Gigolo Joe in "A.I." and shattered our hearts as Jerome (Eugene) in _Gattaca_ could play a creepy, crooked reporter turned assassin, Ref can write this little shocker…

Dedication:

For Sapphire Rose: from one fan of the talented Mr. Law to another, Merry Christmas! If I got any of this wrong, don't hold it against me: I'll have to wait until February for the DVD release, since I didn't get the chance to see the film in the theatre.

Disclaimer:

I don't own _Road to Perdition_, its characters (certainly NOT Maguire), concepts, or other indicia, which are the property of Sam Mendes, Max Allen Collins, David Self, DreamWorks SKG, 20th Century Fox, et al. I also do NOT own the song "Jingle, Bells", fragments of which appear throughout this fic, including the title, which is the product of my own twisted, slightly goth sense of humor (The line was "a **sleighing** song tonight"…you get the idea). I can't remember who owns/wrote that silly song, but I happen to live in Massachusetts, not far from Malden, where the song was written, and where there is a plaque somewhere in a park there to commemorate said song.

I: What Fun it Is

The phone rang in Harlen Maguire's bachelor flat early in the evening of Christmas Eve. He was just rinsing the afternoon's batch of photos in the darkroom in one of the back rooms, but he set aside the fresh prints and carefully lifted a corner of the heavy curtain which separated the work area from the rest of the dim-lit room.

He stepped out into the short hallway and headed for the front room.

He picked up the receiver and sat down in the armchair next to the telephone table.

"Harlen Maguire," he answered.

"Frank Nitti," replied a familiar voice. "I got a little Christmas present for you, fella, but I'd better warn you: it's a tough one."

Maguire chuckled dryly. "I think I'm man enough for whatever you throw my way. Why, what's the deal?"

"Here's the short version of the background: Come to find out one of my associates' granddaughters was witness to a little business dealing of ours that got, shall we say, heated."

He pulled a pad of paper closer to him on the end table. "So you want me to give her something else to think about. Name? Address? What does she look like: blonde? Brunette? You know I'm partial to blondes."

"It isn't that simple: she's eight years old."

A kid. Well, there's a first time for everything…He jotted an 8 on the pad.

"Angelica Campanini, short, golden brown hair, gray eyes, pudgy."

He scribbled down the info. "One of these baby burlesque types?"

"Yeah, the kind who plays the sweet little miss in the pictures, the one who's always rescuing puppies from drowning, but you KNOW she drop-kicks them when she's off camera…oh, and she wears pink a lot."

Maguire doodled the bottom of the figure-8, widening it, sketching in a skirt on it, adding little stick arms and legs, putting a few curlicues for curls around the top of it, two dots for eyes inside the top half.

"She's going to a Christmas party over on the West Side, Vitti's place over Compass Street. She'll probably be with someone, so find a way to separate them, if at all possible, probably her governess, old man Rooney in Rock Island's grandniece Bridget Rooney: about twenty, twenty-two, tall girl, dark hair, glasses.

"You sure you want the job? You might have trouble," Nitti concluded.

"I can handle it."

"How's nine hundred sound for your trouble, dragging you out Christmas Eve?"

Maguire added a mouth to the doodle, a round O of surprise or shock. "No trouble at all: it'll make a good picture."

"I wish you wouldn't keep making these photo records of your work."

"The papers eat up this kind of stuff: Christmas, a sweet little girl's holiday revels cut tragically short."

"That's what I'm afraid of. Someday, someone's going to get wise to you."

Maguire laughed. "Have they questioned Weegee in New York? He's got _nothing_ one me, and I have that from my editors. Papers don't care who shoots to kill and who shoots to capture the moment, as long as it sells sheets."

Nitti was quiet for a moment; Maguire could hear music in the background.

"What's that song playing?" he asked. He recognized it as a dance band version of "Jingle, Bells."

"'Jingle, Bells'," Nitti said, "Why?"

"What fun: I guess I'll be singing a different kind of sleighing song tonight. Get it?"

"I get it, I get it. Now get going, fella. I don't want this to explode in our faces."

"It won't."

They said their goodbyes and hung up.

Maguire went back to his workroom to finish up. Then he reached up to one of the shelves laden with cameras. He took one down and drew out the .38 revolver he kept back there, "for protection".

To be continued…

Literary Easter Eggs:

Vitti—an homage to _Analyze This_, one of the most hysterical comedies I have ever seen (it's even funnier when you've been in therapy as long as I have, and when you once had a very slight run-in with Mafia types [I'll tell that story some other time]): seeing Robert DeNiro as an emotionally frazzled Mafioso having a breakdown was worth watching it


	2. Dashing Through the Snow

+J.M.J.+

A Slaying Song Tonight

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

Basically this is a slightly comic chapter with a lot of humor at Maguire's expense, causing some black exasperation on his part, and obviously, with its fair share of menace (naturally).

Disclaimer:

See Chapter I. And I did not invent "skitching".

II: Dashing Through the Snow

To preserve some amount of anonymity, Maguire drove to the West Side: no having to lug his camera case onto the El and no one would spot the piece he carried inside his topcoat.

The snow that had fallen the night before had turned into a slick ice pack on the streets and despite the chains on the wheels, his car skidded slightly, not enough to cause problems, but enough to cause some concern, lest he be late.

Some kids ran across the street, right in front of him, running from one streetlight to the next. He jammed on the brakes and released them to avoid skidding.

"Hey, look both ways next time, son!" he yelled out the window good naturedly, hiding his annoyance. For a moment, he wondered if he might be photographing the kid's mangled body, a victim of his own stupid recklessness.

As he pulled away, someone knocked on the rear window. Maguire glanced into the rearview without turning his head.

He cursed under his breath: he'd picked up a passenger. A thirteen year old kid had grabbed the rear bumper to hitch a ride with his heels sliding on the icy street: "skitching", the kids call it. He'd hang onto the bumper like a barnacle to a boat either till he tired or he dropped off of his own will. Swerving the car did no good, neither did stopping, getting out and chasing them away, since that was exactly what they wanted you to do. And much as the idea amused Maguire, he wasn't going to stop and back over the kid at an intersection and pretend the car had slipped into reverse. If he just kept driving, the kid would let go or they would run out of ice, whichever came first.

The kid dropped off at the next street corner. Maguire breathed a soundless sigh of relief.

He pulled the car into an alleyway behind a drug store and parked it, intending to walk to the site, build up his cover by snapping human interest shots along the way: the Salvation Army band on a street corner, a man and his son dragging a fir tree home on a sled, people plodding through the snow carrying tissue-paper wrapped presents.

A kid sliding on a wooden shovel zoomed out from an alleyway across Maguire's path, nearly startling a curse from him. A laughing group of kids were sliding down a pile of snow in the alleyway on shovels, slates, cracked tea trays, anything that could substitute for a sled. He zigzagged through the line of fire, holding his camera case high so the kids didn't bang into it.

At the next street corner, he walked into a barrage of snowballs. A group of kids lurked behind a board fence around a vacant lot, throwing snowballs through a gap in the fence at men passing by wearing top hats, like one old coot who ran cursing after his black high silk rolling across the sidewalk, or winter-and-summer bowlers like Maguire's. He jammed his hat on and held it there against any assaults.

His efforts almost caused him to miss Compass Street, but he retraced his steps.

He spotted, coming toward him, a young woman gripping the hand of an eight-year-old girl with curly blonde hair pulled back from her face and tied up with a large pink bow, a green velveteen dress with a wide, starched white collar fringed with lace taut over her fat little body; white tights and those strapped patent leather shoes called Mary Sues or some foolish name like that. Oh, and a doll in a blue dress under her arm. What a picture that would make…

The little girl tried to pull away from her guardian, but the woman yanked her back.

"An-gel-i-ca Campanini, get back here!" the woman cried. "My God, you'll be the death of me!

"I wanna see the horsies," Angelica whined, referring to the horse-drawn freight wagon rumbling past.

"Any closer and you'd be under their hooves," the governess said. "The last thing I need is for you to get killed, after all the trouble you caused at the party."

He had the right girl…

To be continued…

Literary Easter Eggs:

The kids' snow pranks—I don't know if they do it in Chicago, but in south Boston (Irish mob territory: don't tell me you've never heard of the Winter Hill gang) have a pet amusement in the winter which they call "skitching". The kid sliding on the shovel is borrowed from…_It's a Wonderful Life_. And since the wardrobe department for RTP was daft enough to put a bowler hat on a British actor (bowler hats are to England what cowboy hats are to the West), I decided to have some fun with that via the snowball-tossing kids.

Mary Sues—They're really called Mary _Janes_, but I thought I'd be really cheeky. Maguire's a confirmed bachelor, so I doubt he'd know the proper name anyway.


	3. Take the Girl Tonight

+J.M.J.+

A Slaying Song Tonight

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

This chapter ended up a lot longer than I originally intended. How was I to know that the mystery woman would…well, read on. I'll admit this much, the unexpected developments seem to have been inspired by a couple thoughts that ran through my mind when I got a spoiler on the film: "Oh, whatever happened to our gentle Jude!" and "Well, at least you have something nice to look at as you're dying."

Disclaimer:

See Chapter I

III: Take the Girl Tonight

He had to think up a way to get them apart, get the princess down an alleyway where no one would notice, away from any witnesses.

But then the woman looked right at him. This would make it even harder and the last thing he needed now was a complication…she might turn defensive.

Wait…was that a smile of approval crossing her face? Her eyes had been looking him up and down more than a few times. He returned the favor; he got a better look at her: Brunette, about twenty, tall, almost his height, short hair bobbed at the ears, a man's black fedora topping her head, tin rimmed glasses, heavy black topcoat over a black dress. Without the glasses, she'd be a knockout, a little flat up top, but that might have been a trick of the somewhat mannish way she carried herself. He preferred 'em blonde, but he couldn't help returning the smile.

He'd have to get the brunette away from her charge. She didn't have to be part of the picture.

"Excuse me," he said, glancing at his wristwatch. "I think my watch is slow: do you have the time?"

"Does anybody know what time it is?" the brunette asked in a husky alto, a gently cynical smile touching her lips.

"Bridie, it's cold out here," Angelica whined, pulling on the girl's arm.

"Well, you wouldn't be cold if you'd buttoned up your coat," Bridie said, checking her own watch. To Maguire, she added, "Sorry. I have 8.30."

Maguire set down his camera case and adjusted his watch. He knelt down to Angelica's level. "Hey, Princess, you need some help with those buttons?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, giving him a child star smile as he buttoned up her coat. God, the tot belonged in pictures, but he got a clear view of the tiny horns peeping from under her hair bow, holding up her halo.

"You have kids, chief?" Bridie asked.

"Oh no, I'm not married," Maguire replied.

"Really? I'd think a looker like you would already have been snapped up a long time ago."

"I'm married to my work: I'm in 'press'."

"A reporter?"

He picked up his camera case and stood up. "Mostly a photographer."

"I should have guessed from the camera case. Taking snaps of the holiday scene?"

"Just a few for my publishers: I specialize in crime scenes."

"Ah, shooting the dead?"

"You might put it that way—nice phrase. I never thought of it that way."

Bridie shrugged. "I just think 'em up off the top of my head." She hadn't taken Angelica's hand.

"You ought to write them down."

"I do: I'm a writer."

"You work for any of the papers?"

She shook her head. "Nah, I'm a professional liar. Mostly fiction: detective stories, crime dramas, here and there a scientifiction, which I'm trying to do more with."

"Excuse me, a what kind of fiction did you call it?"

"A scientifiction, the kind of stuff they print in _Weird Tales_ and _Amazing Science_, glimpses at what life might be like on Planet X or in the year 1999, when all the buildings in Chicago are a thousand stories of chrome plating. It's gonna be the next big thing in a few years."

"I suppose with the depression setting in, folks need stories like that to keep up their hopes for better things in the future. Still, like they say: crime sells."

"True, in some ways it's a shame that it does. So, since I'm one of these do-gooder types, I always try to instill a moral journey element into my crime stories: the heroes are flawed and the villain has his redeeming qualities and what happens when the two collide."

She might be a bit brainy, but she had a good tongue in her head. "I'd think a nice girl like you would be able to find a better job than writing pulp fiction and serving as an honor guard for a princess," he ventured.

"It's hard with the depression. My uncle in Rock Island keeps trying to get me a job in one of his papers; 'Writing crime stories is no work for a lady,' he says, so I always say, 'What lady? Where? Who you calling a lady?'" This said as a comical whine, her eyes crossed ridiculously.

He chuckled with her. He strongly considered giving her his card, then asking her out on a date after he got this job finished, maybe get a room for the night. She was a little too dark for his usual tastes, but the change would do him good.

"I got the name of our princess here, but I don't think I got yours," he said, feeling for his card case in his pocket.

"It's Bridget, Bridget Rooney. B.H. Rooney to the publishing world, Bridie or Bridgie to everyone who knows me. And you are?"

"Harlen Maguire, though most people call me Maguire."

He was just pulling out his card case when Bridie turned around. "Oh, no!" she cried. "Angelica!"

The little tyke had toddled away, her tracks masked by the tracks of the passersby.

"She can't have gone far," Maguire said. "Let's split up, you and I, and look for her separately. We'll cover more ground that way. We'll meet back here in half an hour."

"That's a good idea," she said. "Maybe I should call the police."

"They'll all be home with their families," he argued.

"That's true."

Bridie headed down the street, in the direction Maguire had come and the same direction she had been traveling before their interlude. Maguire walked up the street, following the remnants of Angelica's tracks in the snow.

It couldn't have turned out better than if he had planned it. This way, he didn't have to do extra work. And lose a possible date.

Concluded in the next chapter…

Afterword:

WARNING: the rating goes up, next chapter.


	4. Then We Got UpSot

+J.M.J.+

A Slaying Song Tonight

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

Some very difficult action writing (to give it the most sanitary name) in this chapter. It was as hard to write as it might be for some of you to read, but half a bar of Lindt's chocolate raspberry put me into a proper state of sugar shock (that could also explain the very strange ending).

Disclaimer:

See Chapter I. Oh, and that is NOT a typo in the title of the chapter down there; that is how it is written in the last line of the second verse of "Jingle, Bells", one of the inspirations for this little bit of nastiness. One last thing: I'm actually pro-fruitcake (yum! You don't like fruitcake? You send me yours!), but I can understand those who don't like it.

IV: Then We Got Up-Sot

Maguire kept his head level, his eyes slitted, gaze dropped without tilting his head, maintaining as ordinary a look as possible to avoid blowing his cover. Someone would get suspicious if they saw him eying the tracks in the snow.

The tracks paused at a toy store window, then moved on. Maguire followed their trail, turning a corner of a street which gradually led into a section of town where a plump little princess didn't belong, past speakeasies and dance halls and other such dens.

He found her toddling past a tearoom which formed a front for the cathouse upstairs. He felt for the .38 under his coat. Guide her toward the alleyway...good girl…

The poppet turned around, facing him, looking up at him, tears on her fat little face. Oh, don't start manning the pumps, kid…

"Oh, uncle Harlen!" she cried, running up to him. _Good god, she's adopted me already!_ he thought, clenching his teeth.

He caught her by the top of her head and held her off. "There you are, Princess," he said, keeping a casual tone. "What were you doing, running off like that? Don't you know there's dragons out here?" He steered her down an alleyway, into a narrow side passage between two buildings.

"Are you taking me back home?" she asked, less teary now.

"You'll be out of this place soon," he said, his hand on the stock of the .38. "I'll take care of you."

The starlight reflected off the crusty snow covering the cinders on the ground. He let go of Angelica's hand and drew out the .38, keeping it low, close to his thigh. He let her get ahead a ways, to keep himself clean.

"Don't let me go," she whined, starting to turn around.

"It's okay: I'm right behind you."

"What if a dragon comes?"

Good god, now he'd have to continue the fairy tale. "If one sneaks up behind, he'll have to get by me first. But if one's stupid enough to come at us from the front, we can both see him. Just don't turn around: the ones that come up behind are scarier than the ones that come from the front."

"I won't be scared."

"Oh ho, they're so frightful to look at, you couldn't help screaming, and that only makes them stronger."

He aimed for the little white back of her neck, right at the base of her skull. For some odd reason, he suddenly remembered the Christmas when he was ten, when someone had thrown a brick through one of the windows of the church just before midnight Mass started, spraying red glass over the nativity scene off to one side on the altar, especially in the manger… He shook his head to clear it, then fingered the trigger, lining up the muzzle with the center of her spine. _Hope you like spending Christmas in heaven with the angels, kid…_

The gun cracked once. Angelica jolted and fell flat on her face. Easy…it would happen so fast, she wouldn't even feel it. Mortal wounds give no pain.

Something squawked. Was she still alive? He aimed again. No…the doll.

_Ma-ma_.

Such a small sound, but it nearly made him jump out of his shoes even as he put the piece back inside his coat and fumbled with his camera case. This wouldn't be as easy a picture as he thought.

More memories…his kid sister Emma getting a doll one Christmas; he was thirteen; she was eight. The doll got smashed somehow on Christmas afternoon, and he happened to be near Emma. Pa was roaring drunk already and leveled the blame on young Harley, grabbed him by the back of the neck and dragged him out to the woodshed where he beat him within an inch of his life. Ma had done nothing, especially when Pa topped of the punishment by groping him…

Maguire clenched his eyes and shook his head to clear it. Focused once more, he loaded a flash bulb, peered into the viewfinder and lined up the camera. _Smile, Princess._

He hit the shutter button. Another flash, another shot. Done.

He broke down the camera and packed it away. He remembered his words to Bridie. He decided to ease the blow for her by taking her to Ender's Hotel, get her a drink, break the news to her, then when she broke down, he'd do his best to console her, use his charms, get her upstairs, make her forget about Angelica…

He took an alternate route back to the spot where he'd met Bridie, more circuitous. He ended up tripping on a large crate that had an occupant. He took care of that, in case he had a witness. Christmas carnage: a murder and a 'suicide'. The vagrant would be found with his own hands around his neck…

He found Bridie waiting where they had parted.

"As you can see, I didn't find her," Bridie said, trying to sound flippant, but sounding concerned instead.

"She's gone," Maguire replied, his empty hand lifted slightly. The look on Bridie's face made him quickly change his plans.

"You okay? Your face is as pale as if you'd seen a ghost."

"The cold does that to me. Used to kill me on the farm where I grew up."

"I would imagine," she said, eying him up and down again. "Didn't they feed you? You're so thin you'd blow away in a strong wind if it weren't for that equipment you're toting."

"Too many kids and not enough food to go around," he said with a shrug.

"Most women would say you need someone cooking for you regularly, but I'm not one of them. I like 'em thin."

"Listen to you, you shameless hussy!" he teased. "Flirting with a strange man when your charge is wandering in a city where she's likely to come to harm."

"This isn't the first time she's run off on me like this," she said. She glanced around and leaned closer to him, her lips close to his ear. "Don't tell a soul, but her pop works for Capone. I've got my own ties too, so nobody's likely to get her, unless they're really dumb. Or suicidal."

"Those things come in handy at times, I suppose," he said. "And I bet that's where you get a lot of ideas for your stories."

"And that's why my uncle doesn't approve, either. I'll keep looking for her. Sorry to trouble you."

"It was a pleasure," he said, shrugging and giving her a smile.

An hour after Maguire got back to his flat, Nitti sent a messenger up to drop off the cut for the job. For the first time in the four years since he started working for Capone's second in command, Maguire looked at it as blood money. 

When midnight Mass was in progress at St. Joseph's close to his apartment, he snuck into the back of the church and dropped the nine hundred into the collection box. Let the parish see it as a Christmas miracle…

Another first his life: he was reluctant to develop his own prints. It took a couple slugs of whiskey before he could get up the courage to set to work on it.

As he lifted the prints from the rinse pan in his darkroom, he distinctly heard someone knock on the outer hall door. He jolted, knocking a can of chemicals to the floor. He cursed under his breath. Who in hell was this?!

He lifted the corner of the curtain and went out. He almost threw the curtain aside and kicked the door open, deliberately ruining his work, but he restrained himself.

When he opened the front door, the caller had already left, probably that kid down the hall who was always banging on people's doors, thinking he was funny, starting early getting onto Santa's bad list next year…

He looked down. A package wrapped in green tissue paper lay at his feet. He picked it up and unwrapped it to find a heavy paraffin-paper wrapped object.

He undid the waxy paper and uncovered a fruitcake and a note.

_Thanks for helping me look for Angelica; here's a little something for your trouble._

_Bridie R._

_P.s. Just between you and I, has anyone ever told you how dashing you look, even when you're armed?_

"I don't need this crap," he snarled. He threw the fruitcake.

It bounced off the opposite wall of the hall. Before he could dodge or duck, the heavy block of flour, sugar and candied fruit hit him on the chin with a resounding _bonk!_ As he fell over backwards, he realized he'd just decked himself with the fruitcake.

The End

Afterword:

All right, that's enough of that. I hope you all enjoyed this: anyone who has ever had to babysit a berserk kid will relate to this fic I'm sure, and some of you probably have wanted to have your enemies bumped off by as cold and practiced a hand as Maguire's. Constructive criticism gently put will be accepted. Evil laughter will be joined in with. Flames will be used to light the bonfire my family has at New Year's Eve.


End file.
